It started accidentally. Waiting at a coffee shop, the three guys at the table next to me were there, presumably, to collaborate about a work assignment. And, as their meeting took the often inevitable detour into workplace ranting, they had the misfortune to vent within earshot of the editor of the Sioux Falls Business Journal.

It was kind of fascinating.

I gathered that they had been tasked with planning some sort of new project or program, one they thought was right for their organization even as they openly detailed everything else that was wrong with it. They hadn’t been given clear direction. The resources to execute this plan probably wouldn’t be allocated. Members of their executive team didn’t like each other. Employees in the trenches were unhappy and overwhelmed.

Then one of them spoke up. “Let’s just come up with the plan. It’s the right thing to do,” he said.

If things at work didn’t improve soon, they agreed they would quit. And I got up to refill my coffee.

If these issues sound familiar, it’s probably because they now occur in most workplaces. A Gallup poll last year found that just 30 percent of Americans are engaged and inspired at work. Almost one in five are actively disengaged. The rest basically are just showing up.

I’m sure there are many reasons why people have become disgruntled to the point they contemplate resigning, but I keep coming back to something a veteran of the Sioux Falls business community once told me. People don’t quit jobs, he said. They quit bosses.

“A high percentage of individuals leave jobs because of their manager,” workplace consultant Kerri Tietgen answered when I posed this theory to her recently.

Even worse, she told me, are the people who haven’t physically left the organization but have otherwise checked out.

“They’re still occupying space in your organization, but they are out,” Tietgen said. “They’re looking for a new job. They’re biding time. They’re waiting to be pushed out of the organization.”

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Along with consulting for businesses, Tietgen offers professional development courses. She put a title on one being held this month that prompted me to turn her theme into this week’s Sioux Falls Business Journal cover story: The Truth About Management.

If you judge by our collective balance sheet, I think the Sioux Falls business community emerged from the Great Recession in pretty solid financial shape. There’s no doubt, however, that our businesses are leaner. We expect fewer people to produce more, and we don’t always supply the resources to train them, equip them and develop them.

That includes the bosses. As baby boomers begin to retire in larger numbers, younger professionals are moving into management. In some cases, organizations are not investing the time and resources to develop people who excelled as individual contributors into those who can achieve as managers. In other cases, workplaces are letting talented professionals stagnate by not finding ways to offer new opportunities or challenges.

“I receive an alarming number of unsolicited emails weekly of people sending me their resumes,” Tietgen told me. “You would not believe the number of people, high-talent, wonderful people, that because they are not getting the attention, they want to leave.”

Kind of like that group of three commiserating over coffee. I’m guessing they have at least six advanced degrees among them. At least two of the three probably aren’t South Dakota natives. They’re basically the phrase “workforce development” personified. If their employer had to replace them, I’m betting it would be a long, expensive recruitment process.

They weren’t complaining about their pay or their assignments but about the environment at work. That’s fixable, if those of us who are managers also act as leaders. No matter what our industry, we’re all in the business of people development. I know we’re busy. I understand it’s tempting to skimp on training. It’s also not easy to create a culture of engagement in workplaces under a lot of pressure to produce.

But with unemployment in the neighborhood of 3 percent, we now routinely identify our workforce as a potential hurdle to business recruitment and expansion. It’s going to get a lot harder if we start losing the people we already have. The rest of the country is recovering, too, and the generation coming into the workplace has shown a greater willingness to move than those before it.

We probably aren’t going to be known as the place with the highest pay. Or the nicest climate. But if we can become known as a city where people actually enjoy going to work because they’re engaged in their jobs, that’s a powerful advantage. And it starts at the top of each organization. People generally don’t quit bosses who have learned how to effectively lead them.